Over-50

Reimagining Capitalism - Can Best and Brightest Pull That Off?

"Citing crushing student debt, punishing hours and 'toxic' work environments, more than half - 58 percent - of beginning Florida lawyers believe their careers are becoming less desirable, according to the latest Young Lawyers Division study." In "YLD Study Tracks The Concerns Of Florida's Young Lawyers," in Florida Bar, April 30, 2019. Here is the article.

One might have expected this kind of rapid disenchantment in the pressure-cooker Northeast legal world. But, not in the sunshine state.

For newbie lawyers, Florida is turning out to be Paradise Lost. According to that same survey, 41 percent are considering a career change or had considered it. 

YLD president Christian George says this means at least one thing: The Florida bar is on the right track in focusing on health and wellness as a major priority.

Of those surveyed, 39 percent noted that they had experienced stress symptoms ranging from panic attacks to flashbacks. 

Those who feel they have a handle on the stress attribute that to one or more of the following:

Therapy

Giving service

Yoga

Exercise

Meditation

Journaling

Twelve step programs

Religion.

However, the young lawyers in Florida are hardly alone in being overwhelmed emotionally and physically by the work they do.

Stanford Graduate Business School professor Jeffrey Pfeffer documented that this is a global phenomenon.

His book "Dying for a Paycheck" provides details of how those in all kinds of jobs, from leadership to lower rankings on the food chain, suffer intensely.

That can literally kill. Either the worker dies of something related to the stress/long hours or commits suicide. Here the book can be ordered from Amazon.

Given the pervasiveness of the negative impacts of work worldwide one wonders if employers are truly sincere when they introduce health and wellness initiatives. Or, are they simultaneously sending a message that the work must still get done on time and on budget, no matter how all that is pushing human beings beyond their ability to cope.

Activists in myriad nations are reviewing the fundamentals of capitalism. Harvard Business School has an elective - Reimagining Capitalism. 

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

The American Way

It was an international media sensation.

A poor girl born in Russia in 1991, with a stop-over in Germany, had figured out the American Way to wealth.

It was built through presenting the right appearance and funding whatever with money you didn't have - at least not then.

The trial of Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey ran about four weeks.

In the end the jury convicted her of three counts to grand larceny and four counts of theft of services.

Her sentencing date is May 9th. She faces up to 15 years in the prison. Here are more details from the media.

Among those bills she hadn't paid or wound up dragging her feet on were the invoices to law firms Perkins Coie, Gibson Dunn, and Lowenstein Sandler. Here is the media coverage on that part of her American style caper. 

Those who have worked in the big time understand perfectly Sorokin's game plan. In ghostwriting/scripting and marketing communications I have clients who operate their enterprises and personal lives on the sheer ability to keep the credit going and enough revenues coming in to pay simple bills like the rent to the landlords of the trophy buildings in Manhattan. 

Only a few times did that cross the line to illegal. For instance, there were arrests for habitual check kiting. 

Sorokin's error in judgment is that she thought she could pull that off without having some solid funding base.

Therefore, she probably felt forced to embezzle almost $300k.

Her lawyer Todd Spodek argued she had every intention of paying it back.

Okay, so did lawyers caught with their hands in the cookie jar embezzling clients' funds. Among them had been the fictional Will Gardner from "Abovethelaw." He got off easy - a temporary suspension of his ability to practice law. More often there is prison time. It is not uncommon for there to be suicides before reporting to prison.

Some might consider it a sad day for hustlers like Sorokin. They came, they saw, and they thought they could become part of the gilded era.

Always-yearning-to-be-rich F. Scott Fitzgerald captured that impulse in "The Great Gatsby." The protagonist of that novel paid for the right to be included with his life.

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald's punishment was an early death from chronic alcoholism. 

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

MeToo - What Baby Boomer Women Had Known for Decades

For every Gretchen Carlson who settled for $20 million and gained unique access to new opportunities, there have many women who lost everything in filing MeToo kinds of lawsuits. 

Yes, litigation meant burning bridges.

The plaintiffs probably felt rage.

They were convinced they were doing the right thing.

They gained satisfaction that they might be helping the next generation of professional women.

But as seasoned players in corporate life they should have anticipated that there would be retaliation.

That's just the way the world works.

In an article in Vanity Fair, Diana Falzone documents the backlash.

Talent agents won't represent the former plaintiffs.

Those in the hiring loop ignore them.

For a large number of them, the settlements weren't big money either, not the Carlson kind.

Therefore, what we now know is that the world hasn't changed much.

The cost of outing alleged injustice remains high. Those in power want their good life to continue. That rules out any possible future trouble from those who are perceived as whistleblowers. 

When baby boomer women first were getting good jobs, those of us fortunate enough to have caring mentors got clued in fast. When I confided to my mentor a perceived wrong by a male colleague his response was: Don't be a cry baby. The message was to suck it up. 

Those who, for example, were victims of handsy behavior patiently applied for other positions in the corporation. It was unthinkable to "report" such behavior. In fact, that behavior was common knowledge.

Perhaps I understood about the code of silence more quickly than many others because I had grown up amidst the machinations of the Frank Hague Machine in Hudson County, New Jersey.

In order to get jobs, have the snow plowed from your street, and be invisible to the police you had to, as the saying went, "not fight city hall."

It was very wrong.

But the system produced busses that ran on time, excellent public schools, low cost medical care at the Medical Center, a new maternity hospital (the famous Margaret Hague), and employment for anyone who wanted to work.

Those who couldn't endure such institutionalized tyranny left. I made it my business from the get-go to get a college scholarship out of state and never return.

Ironically, I ran into a more personal version of tyranny at college. To today I wonder: Would my life have been less filled with suffering had I stayed in Jersey City? There, at least, the rules were absolutely clear and I had no expectation of anything else.

Here's what every woman should know: Whether it had been the political machine in Hudson County, a Catholic women's college in Pennsylvania, or the glam careers in entertainment, the dark part of human nature tends to dominate.

Maybe the best we can do is keep struggling to find where we can live our little lives without losing a sense of dignity and some control.

I bumped into that when I became an independent contractor. I have had real choices about how to earn my living. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

 

Baby Boomers - Taking Charge of End of Life Issues, Including Rational Suicide

It's the dark secret among a growing number of us baby boomers. 

That's the determination to commit suicide when we can't take care of ourselves any more or sense we are slipping into dementia.

The research by Kaiser Health and PBS News Hour confirms that, yes, we are going through with that plan. Residents of nursing homes, assisted living, and other care facilities have been taking their own lives. Here are more details from USA Today.

Those delivering themselves from despair don't give a damn that it's against the law in America. In some European nations such as Switzerland it's not only legal but assistance is available.

In August 2018, the influential The New York Times explored this issue. There is even a term for this kind of self-deliverance: rational suicide. 

Given the embrace by the infirm elderly of rational suicide, the surprise is that government in the U.S. hasn't responded by overseeing a national conversation about the ethical, legal, humane, and even economic implications. Regarding the latter, residing in a nursing home is expensive. It can consume the life savings of a person who would have preferred to pass on those funds to loved ones or even a favorite cause. That denies in a profound way freedom of choice.

Could rational suicide for the aging like myself become a campaign issue in Election 2020?

What drifts or shoots to attention is often triggered by life events. If a candidate's loved one in a care facility commits suicide, then there could be national soul searching about how to prevent the widescale suffering among those who can no longer live independently.

It's downright predicable that how we're going to off ourselves comes up when we baby boomers encounter an acquaintance or relative from the past. There's no shock attached. It is just another one of those end of life matters. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Our End of Life Issues

Irwin Jacobs, law enforcement believes, murdered his wife Alexandria.

She had been wheelchair bound for about a year and her mind was slipping into dementia.

Then he murdered himself.

A self-made entrepreneur, Irwin had been part owner of the Vikings. Here are more details from the media. 

That's about all the public knows.

It is a risk to speculate as to motivation underlying the murder, then the suicide.

But in this era when so many bear witness, helplessly, to the irreversible physical and mental decline of loved ones, speculation may be useful.

The media had reported that Irwin was distraught by Alexandria's severe medical problems. But, as we all know, legally there was not much he could do, at least not in the U.S., to end her suffering.

If his wife had been able to make the journey to Europe, some nations such as Switzerland allow and administer assisted suicide. No,the client for that legal service doesn't have to be terminally ill. In Belgium, those with chronic psychiatric challenges, not responsive to treatment, can apply for assisted suicide. 

It could be that doing right by the woman he loved, Irwin decided to end her life.

Had he not also ended his own he would have faced years of legal hearings and a likely prison sentence. The ethos of America has been shaped by the misfit Puritans and reinforced by the Catholic Church, then the alt-right. Community values are the underpinnings of state law. 

I may be wrong about Irwin's decision-making. But I also may be right. 

What's being called "rational suicide" is on the minds of a growing number of us Baby Boomers. Here is recent coverage in the media.

If we sense we will wind up in a nursing home or totally lose our memory, some of us have it, as the saying goes, all planned out. We will shoot ourselves, take the pills, or jump from a high building. 

But we know damn well many of those attempts get botched. Committing suicide isn't easy. There are too many variables associated with the human body. 

So, we wonder if a loved one will come to our aid, then commit the ultimate sacrifice and kill himself or herself? Let's hope that isn't necessary. Let's lobby for legal assisted suicide in America for conditions other then officially documented near-term terminality.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Unemployed Content-Providers - Plenty of This Kind of Work Available

How sweet it is.

The 1% and the few tiers under it have been ensnared in a massive scandal.

Essentially, it's about exotic forms of cheating to have someone admitted to an elite institution of higher education.

Here is a copy of the indictment.

Here is the media coverage.

The alleged scam could go by the name "AdmissionsGate" or "AthleteGate."

The latter refers to the allegation that former Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith "billed" at about $400k an assignment creating faux credentials for non-athlete applicants to be admitted as athletes. 

Among those accused has been co-chair of law firm Willkie Farr - Gordon Caplan. Allegedly he ponied up $75k to have a professional test-taker sit in for his daughter. Here are more details from Kathryn Rubino at Abovethelaw.com.

About 40 have been swept up into this mess - directly. More will be - indirectly. Likely presidents and deans will have to resign for not ensuring adequate checks and balances in the admissions process.

But, hell, this particular high-end scam is just the tip of the iceberg in college admissions as well as then navigating toward being awarded a degree.

There is a growing global industry which owns the personal essay niche. That statement by an applicant is an important part of the package presented.

Here is the article I published with tips on how applicants can approach this writing task. The article assumes the applicants will accept the ethical responsibility to put together the personal statement themselves.

Across the world, fewer are doing that. Clever firms and individuals in this niche position and package their services as coaching and editing. They mandate the customer put something down on paper. Then they overhaul it way beyond the original content. That's what submitted to the admissions committee.

The less clever simply advertise the service as a form of ghostwriting. They place help-wanted on all sections of the international help-wanted site Craigslist for ghostwriters. Sometimes the ghostwriters, as is traditional in executive communications, will interview the applicant by Skype or in-person. Other times they will work from a data sheet. 

The industry can be lucrative. For those businesses and individuals with a track record for producing the essays which catapult applicants into what are considered the Ivies around the world there's big money. For small fry, the ghostwriting can be billed at about $25 an hour. An outfit in Boston - a city whose major industry is higher education - pays ghostwriters 80 bucks an essay. Peanuts. The trick is to grab assignments for elite school admissions.

Of course. once admitted the cheating can extend as far as the student's budget will go. A growing number of global services and solos will research and ghostwrite term papers. That includes the footnotes. Others will tune in to an online course and fulfill all the requirements. There are also note-takers who attend large lecture classes. 

The noble concept of higher education has become as corrupt as any banana republic.

That wasn't always the situation, of course.

When I was an adjunct professor I detected only one case of cheating. It was plain-vanilla plagiarism. No exotic ghostwriter seemed to be the middleman. Back then, there wasn't the large amount of student loan money floating around. Most of those in college couldn't afford to hire ghostwriters, note-takers, and test-takers. 

Unfortunately, with so many white-collar positions vanishing, there's no shortage of talent willing to get into this line of work.

Recently, a displaced journalist felt "forced" to cross the line. He had read my essay on how to approach the college admission personal statement. He came to me to sort of "apologize" for abandoning his ethics code. I informed him of legit work in researching and creating content for businesses in the career niche. There's plenty of it and there will be plenty more if the recession is severe.

Proposal: Appoint a Sheriff of Academia to set up stings to apprehend both those who are willing to pay for cheaters and those who implement the cheating. Make the sentence mandatory prison for five years. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

What Would You Do with $500 Monthly String-Free Funding?

Stockton, California has seen hard financial times. That included double-digit unemployment and a high foreclosure rate. Those times aren't over: one in four continues to live in poverty.

The question is if "free money" - that is Universal Basic Income (UBI) - can catapult residents of that community onto an upward financial trajectory? And, simultaneously, can it soften capitalism. For example, will the funding increase formal voluntarism and motivate random acts of kindness?

As the Sacramento Bee reports, as part of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), 130 residents will receive $500 a month for 18 months. That is strings-free. They can spend the money how they want, save it, or invest it.

The struggle to make ends meet in this era of low wage growth may have hardened many of us. And "the system" seems rigged against those not in the 1%. Can there be a return to Norman Rockwell good-hearted community values if there were financial wiggle room?

That SEED experiment could provide insight. At the January meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, there was a peek under the hood of current capitalism. That motor, many agreed, was not working well. Reform was needed.

However, there had been a shortage of ideas and concrete plans how to reset the operation of how the "Invisible Hand" operated. Father of capitalism - Adam Smith - invented that concept and term. Its fundamental belief is that total trust should be in the dynamics of the marketplace. 

Increasingly, though, it's not enough to simply be "smart" about earning, spending, saving, and investing money. For instance, many experts advise against owning a house, especially as one heads into retirement or semi-retirement. But that trend has turned America into LandLord Nation. Rent is high and getting higher just about everywhere. Members of all generations are becoming homeless. 

Can $500 a month give human beings adequate financial wiggle room to free them up to look beyond their own economic survival and reach out and help their fellow man? 

Time will tell. Meanwhile, the next location where this experiment can be tried out is Lordstown, Ohio. Soon the GM plant producing the slow-selling Cruze will idle, likely permanently. What will happen to the community with 1,600 who lose jobs which paid relatively well? Can UBI make this kind of economic shift more humane?

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374 Need @gmail.com. 

Power - Remembering When It First Came Out of the Closet

The next target of the #MeToo Movement could be all industries in which the power remains in the hands of males.

At the top of the list could be how the business of practicing law is conducted in the law firm.

CBS MoneyWatch reports the results of a survey by ZipRecruiter. Of the females interviewed in law, 59% indicated they experienced sexual harassment.

They refrained from reporting it because of fear of retaliation as well as the assumption that nothing would be done about that. 

It seems odd that those in law firms would allegedly engage in sexual misconduct. After all, they are lawyers. They understand the possible legal consequences.

However, the reality is that power often makes the miscreants (and sometimes they are female) assume they:

• Have a right to forbidden fruit
• Will get away with it.

There is not enough research on power as a source of delusion in the workplace. That is despite the proliferation of social media and anonymous employee sites such as Glassdoor. 

This problem extends way beyond sexual misconduct.

It could be the platform for allegedly inflicting all kinds of mind games on employees, interns, and consultants.

That allegedly took place, Glassdoor presents, at the high-profile public affairs firm The Dilenschneider Group.

Here are the employee reviews on Glassdoor of The Dilenschneider Group. All give the firm a rating of "1" out of a possible "5." That means the overall rating is "1."

In contrast, public affairs firm kglobal has an overall rating of "4/3" out of "5" on Glassdoor. Here are the Glassdoor reviews.

The irony - or maybe it isn't ironic - is that the founder of The Dilenschneider Group - Bob Dilenschneider - had been an early adopter of tutoring executives about power. His book, published way back in 1990 - was "Power and Influence."

In a sense, Dilenschneider brought power out of the closet. Before that, we in executive communications focused our ghostwriting and scripting on the subject of "leadership" - effective and ineffective. The term "power" had been taboo.

No longer. Once the door was opened on discussing power, books on its how became best-sellers.

On the dark side had been Gabriel Sherman's biography of Roger Ailes - "The Loudest Voice in the Room." In the realm of "educational" has been Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs."

Now, thanks to #MeToo and niche law specialties such as Sanford's employment-law practices, we could be entering a new era on looking at power. Those who abuse it in any way could be positioned and packaged as entities to be purged from organizations. That would be no matter their talent or the results generated.

Takeaway: Males and females who play fast and loose with power should get it that their behavior will be observed, assessed, and, if proved to be even inappropriate, will be punished. What is treated as "inappropriate" could include the alleged yelling by partners at law firms. 

Just as there had been Nader Raiders for consumer fraud, there could be Power Outers for zeroing in on possible abuse.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation jane

When That Advanced Degree Is No Longer Marketable ...

The peril of age in a hunt for work is well-known. 

Less well-known is how "dangerous" being what's called "overeducated" can be.

By "overeducated" is meant that your academic degree isn't marketable - at least to that particular employer or temporary agency.  The degree may be a Ph.D. in psychology or JD.

Because those searching for work are not fully aware how that degree could be holding them back, they leave it on their resume. That's even though a few employers might have told them explicitly that they are overeducated.

Tonight, again I encountered that reality.

From my communications business I developed a career coaching niche. A Ph.D. in American Literature had been referred to me. She no longer wanted to hop around being an adjunct professor. For the past six months she had been turned down for a number of non-academic jobs. In two situations she had been told she was, you got it, overeducated.

Bluntly, I asked her: Do you want to work?

Her answer: Yes.

Then I went right to it: Have you considered dropping all the degrees beyond the BA?

She was silent. 

Obviously, she didn't want to cave to disowning what she had achieved and was proud of.

But disown she may have to. I explained that in many job slots and gig assignments a lot of education scares employers.

They might assume you will be analyzing what's going on in the workplace and wind up reporting whatevers to regulatory agencies or even filing a lawsuit. 

Another negative is that they fear you will fly the coop when something better comes along. After all, with all that education ...

Of course, there are those who declare that it would be unethical to leave off the academic degrees.

I reframe their objection in this way: It's also unethical to put your life at risk (yes, possibility of suicide) because you can't get work.

Here's a classic example of that. A JD lost her job practicing law in 2009. 

No surprise, she had a mental breakdown. No one was hiring laid-off lawyers back then. They were perceived as damaged goods.

The odds were that she would never get another similar job.

Her therapist told her to get a job, any job. It was the first step to becoming employable in something, anything. And saving her life.

Her therapist also told her to not put the JD on the resume. Otherwise no one would hire her for a survival job. At the time, that was the only kind of task she could handle.

It took two years but eventually she was hired for a middle management job. Yes, she applied for it with the JD on the resume. It was not directly related to law but in that context the law degree was assessed as a plus.

Along her journey to regroup after losing her law job, did she worry about ethics? No.

Did she worry about misrepresenting herself? No.

In therapy, she recognized her life was on the line. To save it, she violated her usual norms.

When the market for doctoral degrees in the humanities crashed for college teaching in the early 1970s, I wasn't worldly enough to scale back my credentials to the BA.

Consequently, it took about five years - way too long - to land a nonacademic job which paid well. And that only happened because, at the time, the oil industry was on the defensive in public affairs. It recruited the highly educated like myself to draft articles and speeches for the executives. 

Takeaway: In the current fast-changing world economy many academic degrees will wind up not being marketable. That's just the way it is.

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.

You Remember Ernestine, Of Course

AT&T is no longer a monopoly. 

Yet, within less than a month I have had not one but TWO Ernestine moments.

Those experiences were frequent back then when AT&T was the only telecommunications game in town.

The seeming indifference at that time was symbolized by Lily Tomlin's character Ernestine.

The first Ernestine moment happened on November 29th, both in AT&T retail (6000 Mahoning Avenue, Austintown, Ohio) and its support line (800-331-0500). Here are the soul-wrenching details.

In response, the power that be who oversees OH - Shaun Nork - contacted me. He listened. At the time, just having AT&T listen satisfied me. Emotionally, I filed away the ordeal as over. 

Shame on me. Ernestine returned yesterday. Through email I received this receipt from AT&T for payment of a bill for an account I assumed had been closed on November 29th. Here it is Download Attpaymentreceipt. 

My concerns were:

• The account wasn't closed
• This was a charge I should not have to pay
• The charge will continue to recur and be deducted from my bank checking account via direct deposit
• The billing on the new account (a downsized smart phone replacing the iPhone) would not proceed 
• The new account, because of an unpaid bill, would be shut down.

I called the AT&T help line listed on the old account - 800-331-0500.

Two account representatives later over a time frame of two hours, the problem wasn't resolved. I was in terror that mismanagement would result in shutting off my new account and I would be left without a phone which I needed for my business.

Yet, obviously, this wasn't a complex issue that would have to be handled by the transactional lawyers at Cravath Law Firm. 

Totally unhinged, I called Nork. Then and since then no return call. I left the voice mail that this had turned into a regulatory matter.

Yes, I was having chest pains. And, yes, my age puts me in a protected category.

A recovered alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in decades felt powerless against having that first drink, again.

Sweet jesus, I thought to myself, help me.

Next, I further disrupted my work day by driving to the AT&T retail in Austintown.

There, the manager and a salesperson explained what should have been on the receipt or told to me by the account representatives I had reached at 800-331-0500.

• The account was closed in the midst of the normal billing cycle.
• Therefore, a bill was issued.
• The full amount for a total cycle was charged.
• I would received a return of the over-billing by check, within about four weeks.

So, after almost three hours (including drive time), the problem was addressed. 

Or, so I hope.

I don't know.

Regulators in telecommunications should assign mystery shoppers to both AT&T retail and its phone help lines.

When it comes to negligence in the food industry, criminal charges are made and executives go to prison.

Why not apply that same model to telecommunications. Wireless service is as much a necessity of life in the 21st century as food. My hunch is if some AT&T members of the C-Suite go to prison sales and customer service would improve - significantly.  

The chest pains let up about 90 minutes after I left AT&T retail.

I didn't have a drink of alcohol.

At 7:00 P.M. I attended a 12-step meeting I hadn't planned on going to. After all, I have assignments to complete before the long Christmas holiday.

The dog jumped up on my lap when I cried. 

Reflection: Personal injury lawyers might find they can file class action litigation based on the alleged harm done by the current seeming Ernestine ethos. Judges who have experienced that kind of trauma are likely to certify the class. 

Litigation Communications

Making points of law, policy issues, and politics accessible and engaging for the public, media, investors, and more. Complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.